The Mourning After
by silentlullabye
Summary: Gibbs and Tony mourn Kate's death. They leave the consequences for tomorrow. Tag to Twilight and Kill Ari Parts 1 and 2. Slash.


The Mourning After

An NCIS fic.

Tag to episodes _Twilight_, and _Kill Ari Parts 1 and 2_.

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><p>She was dead. It was an undeniable fact. But Tony couldn't handle facts right now. That's what the beer was for. The slight tingle, the buzz, it kept him in a state of peaceful calm. It was exactly what he needed.<p>

Her killer was dead. But the thought didn't comfort him like he had hoped. Tomorrow he would have to watch them put her body into the ground. He had never had to do that before. In all his years in law enforcement, he had seen a lot of death, but never the death of a partner. When he was a detective he had lost a few officers, but no one he had personally worked with.

Kate was different. They had worked side by side for two years. She had stayed with him when he was dying. They had argued, laughed, and cried together. They had spent hours talking, drinking, watching movies. When Tony didn't have a date or other plans, they might get together for dinner. As friends. It was all they could ever be, a decision they had reached unanimously. They would flirt and jest and screw with the other one's personal values. But that was merely the surface of a valuable friendship that Tony indebted his more mature ways to.

She had changed him for the better, no matter how slight. He was still a womanizer and a bit of a player. But now he showed more respect for those he dated. Kate knew all his secrets, and he knew hers. It was one of the closest friendships he could remember having in a long time.

And now she was gone. He couldn't go home. Memories of the previous Monday when she had called to see how he was recovering from the plague swamped the apartment.

He didn't know why Gibbs' front porch was so welcoming, or why he wasn't more concerned with Gibbs finding him out here drinking. Tony just relished the quiet of the neighborhood.

Gibbs didn't say anything when he arrived home to see Tony sitting on the stoop. He took one look at his subordinate and hauled him into the house.

Tony was a quarter way through a twelve pack of beers, but Gibbs knew he had to have had something stronger earlier in order for him to be this out of it. Tony DiNozzo was not a lightweight.

They sat on the couch, Tony empty handed at Gibbs command, and Gibbs himself with a full glass of bourbon. There was nothing on television this late but infomercials. So they sat in silence.

Gibbs refilled his glass after draining the first in a single swallow. He glanced over at Tony, who appeared to be very close to sleep.

He was wrong.

There was a hand on his knee that was not his own. He would never have expected Tony to be so brazen, even while drunk, but there it was.

Gibbs knew he wasn't even close to buzzed, and yet he allowed the hand to remain.

"I miss her." Tony's words were little more than a whisper, but Gibbs could make them out. The hand had moved and was now closer to his hip than his knee. Tony leaned closer, his eyelids a bit droopy and his mouth slightly open.

Gibbs made eye contact with him, watching the green eyes shimmer in the dim light. He felt a heaviness in the air around them, and understood that something was happening. Something that probably shouldn't and yet he made no move to stop it.

Tony's face grew closer. It had been ages since Gibbs had kissed a fellow man; decades. But as Tony pressed his soft lips against his own, Gibbs automatically responded in kind.

This was wrong. There was such a wrongness about it that Gibbs could no longer even remember which thing was the worst. The liquor, the kissing, of the emotions that ran rampant.

They missed her, and the connection that loss created between the pair of them was simply making itself apparent with the physical joining of themselves. Gibbs hungrily took the recognition of loss that Tony was displaying in his kiss and responded with a desire for something to fill the gap her loss had created.

Tony pressed against him, moving to hover over Gibbs' body, his hands on his shoulders. Gibbs supported him with his hands on Tony's hips. Tony pulled away, gasping for air, but Gibbs pulled him back. There was an urgency they had to meet. For a moment in time all their focus could be on each other, instead of on her dead body lying on a rooftop with a whole in her forehead.

Tony wiped away the mental residue of her blood on his face with each kiss he bestowed onto the man before him. He was in the now, the moment, a single fraction of time. This was all that mattered.

His shirt was on the floor, and Tony could feel the contours of Gibbs' body as he worked away at his belt. Gibbs allowed Tony to take a lead, but every now and then the alpha inside would strip it away as he yanked clothing from Tony's body.

Tony registered stairs at one point, some doors, and a soft mattress. The alcohol swam in his brain, but he didn't care. He was focused on the anchor above him; focused on holding on tight to the one thing that seemed permanent.

He was ready to forget the fragile and the temporary. Those things did not linger.

The warm body above did. And that was all that mattered.

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Tony awoke with a pounding headache. He was alone. For a second he allowed the feeling of completeness to remain, but only for a moment. Soon, the emptiness returned.

He fished his clothes from around the house, and made his way back to his apartment to change into his suit for the funeral.

He would worry about last night's activities another time. Today he had to watch a friend be put into the ground. Permanent and binding.

Gibbs was late to the funeral. He nodded to Tony, but did nothing to acknowledge the previous night. Tony was grateful. Today was about Kate.

The night's events were necessary at the time. Necessary for both Tony and Gibbs in order for them both to accept the loss they shared. Anything else, like an attraction beforehand, did not come into play accept for in only the tiniest way.

It was a way of mourning.

Who could begrudge them that?

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><p>AN: I've had this fic in mind ever since I first saw Twilight, but it took me a while to get around to writing it. I hope you enjoyed. Any feedback is much appreciated, whether its praise or some positive criticism.

Thanks for reading!

sl

**Disclaimer: NCIS is the property of Donald P. Bellisario and Don McGill.**


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